The Egyptian Book of the Dead (Papyrus of Ani) · 39 of 357 · tr. E.A. Wallis Budge
Chapter 5 (part 3)
When Isis heard of this she went to Byblos, and, gaining admittance to the palace through the report of the royal maidens, she was made nurse to one of the king's sons, Instead of nursing the child in the ordinary way, Isis gave him her finger to suck, and each night she put him into the fire to consume his mortal parts, changing herself the while into a swallow and bemoaning her fate.
But the queen once happened to see her son in flames, and cried out, and thus deprived him of immortality.
Then Isis told the queen her story and begged for the pillar which supported the roof.
This she cut open, and took out the chest and her husband's body,[3] and her lamentations were so terrible that one of the royal children died of fright.
She then brought the [1.
In the Calendar in the fourth Sallier papyrus (No.
10,184) this day is marked triply unlucky, and it is said that great lamentation by Isis and Nephthys took place for Un-nefer (Osiris) thereon.
See Chabas, Le Calendrier , p.
50.
Here we have Plutarch's statement supported by documentary evidence.
Some very interesting details concerning the festivals of Osiris in the month Choiak are given by Loret in Recueil de Travaux , t.
iii., p.
43 ff; t.
iv., p.
21 ff.; and t.
v., p.
85 ff.
The various mysteries which took place thereat are minutely described.
2 On the cutting of the hair as a sign of mourning, see W.
Robertson Smith, The Religion of the Semites , p.
395; and for other beliefs about the hair see Tylor, Primitive Culture , vo1.
ii., p.
364, and Fraser, Golden Bough , pp.
193-208.
3 The story continues that Isis then wrapped the pillar in fine linen and anointed it with oil, and restored it to the queen.
Plutarch adds that the piece of wood is, to this day, preserved in the temple of Isis, and worshipped by the people of Byblos.
Prof.
Robertson Smith suggests ( Religion of the Semites , p.
175) that the rite of draping and anointing a sacred stump supplies the answer to the unsolved question of the nature of the ritual practices connected with the Ashera.
That some sort of drapery belonged to the Ashera is clear from 2 Kings xxiii., 7.
See also Tylor, Primitive Culture , vol.
ii., p.
150; and Fraser, Golden Bough , vol.
i., p.
304 ff.] {p.
li} Plutarch's version.
chest by ship to Egypt, where she opened it and embraced the body of her husband, weeping bitterly.
Then she sought her son Horus in Buto, in Lower Egypt, first having hidden the chest in a secret place.
But Typhon, one night hunting by the light of the moon, found the chest, and, recognizing the body, tore it into fourteen pieces, which he scattered up and down throughout the land.
When Isis heard of this she took a boat made of papyrus[1]--a plant abhorred by crocodiles--and sailing about she gathered the fragments of Osiris's body.[2] Wherever she found one, there she built a tomb.
But now Horus had grown up, and being encouraged to the use of arms by Osiris, who returned from the other world, he went out to do battle with Typhon, the murderer of his father.
The fight lasted many days, and Typhon was made captive.
But Isis, to whom the care of the prisoner was given, so far from aiding her son Horus, set Typhon at liberty.
Themes
◆Alchemical Workpraxis
The transformation of base substance — outer matter or the inner soul — into a purified, perfected, or 'gold' state; the magnum opus as both laboratory practice and spiritual allegory.
The process of burning away mortality to achieve immortality parallels the alchemical transformation of base substance.
The Egyptian principle of truth, balance, and right order underlying both the cosmos and human conduct; the parallel to Zoroastrian asha and Greek dike.
The narrative centers on the conflict between Osiris (order) and Typhon (chaos), reflecting the Egyptian struggle to maintain cosmic balance.
The felt condition of exile from one's divine origin — Rumi's reed flute torn from its bed, Plotinus's 'we have forgotten,' the Gnostic forgetfulness; the affective wound that complements return_to_source and gives the return its motive.
Osiris's body is scattered and hidden, representing a state of separation from wholeness and the divine source.
The doctrine — central to Eastern Orthodox and Maximian theology — that the human person is progressively transformed into a partaker of the divine nature by grace, not merely justified or united in passing ecstasy.
Isis attempts to make the royal child immortal through fire, representing a ritual of deification.
Iamblichean ritual practice that engages the gods directly through consecrated material symbols and actions, on the premise that divine power descends into properly prepared matter — distinct from philosophical contemplation alone.
Isis performs magical rituals and transformations, such as becoming a swallow, to engage divine power and alter reality.
The material body viewed as a prison, tomb, or source of error that hinders spiritual knowledge and return.
[auto] The narrative explicitly describes the need to consume 'mortal parts' through fire to achieve immortality, framing the physical body as a barrier to divine status.